SF Giants To Stream First Intersquad Game: Sign of Things to Come?

With the explosion of social media, many organizations have slowly digested what it all means and what things they can do to enhance their brand. It is clear that some teams have decided to take the next step and have concluded with good reason that Twitter is here to stay and will provide enormous opportunities for fans to connect with their team.

Take what the San Francisco Giants are doing for their first spring training tomorrow morning. In what usually amounts to a slow game that is primarily comprised of players with long shots of playing in the major leagues this season, the Giants are going to stream the game on their website (and hold a Twitter conversation during it). This is fairly monumental going forward because of the opportunities that it provides for the Giants.

The team can further develop their global brand by exposing their fanbase to a game that usually gets no traction. The Twitter conversation should permit the fans to feel better connected with the game, increasing their loyalty to and interest in the team. It can be much more exciting to feel like you are watching an online telecast with thousands of other people around the country than to watch alone at your computer or with a select group of friends. This will provide the opportunity for the Giants to keep people watching for longer periods of time and see many players that only the most ardent of fans know.

The result of more fans watching the Giants could be more ticket sales to home games and road games with the potential for fans to watching all around the country. This also could lead to merchandise sales and a great way to advertise their spring training facilities to fans that perhaps have never seen a picture of Scottsdale stadium. This could lead fans within driving distance to want to check out Scottsdale stadium for themselves – suddenly a snowball effect of exposure develops as the team cultivates new relationships and develops new supporters of the team.

This is social media at play and it gives savvy teams enormous potential to distance themselves from teams less inclined to jump into the social media revolution. The Giants can put on a broadcast from their own website and using their own equipment. They don’t need to hire expensive on-air talent and have the freedom to improvise at will and expose their brand to a vast number of people all over the world. What exact results this yields for teams in the future is yet to be seen, but the opportunity to expose yourself to casual fans is enormous. Not many teams in baseball have a true national presence, but going forward the ones who can harness the powers of social media will have a leg up on those who don’t embrace these new avenues. The Giants seem to be well on their way to growing their brand and fanbase.

How do you feel about the growing use of Twitter in professional sports?